Departure[s]
The other day, I discovered an alarming possibility. No, worse: an alarming fact.
I have an old friend, a consultant radiologist, who for years has been sending me clippings from the British Medical Journal. She knows that my interest tends towards the ghoulish and the extreme. In my memory – that place where degradation and embellishment overlap – I have filed away cases of patients who exploded when a heated scalpel ignited their bodily gases, and others from the early days of the MRI scanner when internal metal stitches were shot like shrapnel into soft flesh. These stories are sometimes accompanied by photos: for instance, of a man who grew his toenails to such a curling length - several metres, as I recall - that for years he had been unable to walk. Then there is the medical profession’s everyday task of removing unexpected objects which have been swallowed – like bags of nails - or forcibly indulged up the rectum. (In the old days, popular anal self-implants were miniature busts of Napoleon, a habit which doubtless added patriotism to pleasure.) And a case I particularly remember, of a man who had been fitted with a tracheostomy tube. When he went for a check-up, doctors were baffled by yellowish stains around the hole into which the tube was fixed. It turned out that the patient was a desperate smoker who, unable to inhale through his mouth any more, discovered that if he took out his tube, the cigarette fitted perfectly in the hole; all he had to do was light up and inflate his lungs. Men (and most of these bizarre activities were undertaken by men) can be most ingenious, even - or especially - when it goes against their own best interests.
From the archives
·
1998
The Tale of the Unknown Island
And the sailors, she asked, No one came, as you can see, But did some at least say they would come, she asked, They said there are no more unknown islands and that, even if there were, they weren’t prepared to leave the comfort of their homes and the good life on board passenger ships just to get involved in some ocean-going adventure, looking for the impossible, as if we were still living in the days when the sea was dark, And what did you say to them, That the sea is always dark, And you didn’t tell them about the unknown island, How could I tell them about the unknown island, if I don’t even know where it is, But you’re sure it exists, As sure as I am that the sea is dark, Right now, seen from up here with the water the colour of jade and the sky ablaze, it doesn’t seem at all dark to me, That’s just an illusion, sometimes islands seem to float above the surface of water, but it’s not true, How do you think you’ll manage if you haven’t got a crew, I don’t know yet, We could live here and I could get work cleaning the boats that come into port, and you, And I, You must have some skill, a craft, a profession, as they call it nowadays, I have, did have, will have if necessary, but I want to find the unknown island, I want to find out who I am when I’m there on that island, Don’t you know, If you don’t step outside yourself, you’ll never discover who you are, The king’s philosopher, when he had nothing to do, would come and sit beside me and would watch me darning the pages’ socks, and sometimes he would start philosophizing, he would say that each man is an island, but since that has nothing to do with me, being a woman, I paid no attention to him, what do you think, That you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we cant see ourselves unless we become free ourselves, Unless we escape from ourselves, you mean, No, that’s not the same thing. The blaze in the sky was dying down, the waters grew suddenly purple, not even the cleaning woman could doubt that the sea really is dark, at least at certain times of the day.
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The Tale of the Unknown Island
And the sailors, she asked, No one came, as you can see, But did some at least say they would come, she asked, They said there are no more unknown islands and that, even if there were, they weren’t prepared to leave the comfort of their homes and the good life on board passenger ships just to get involved in some ocean-going adventure, looking for the impossible, as if we were still living in the days when the sea was dark, And what did you say to them, That the sea is always dark, And you didn’t tell them about the unknown island, How could I tell them about the unknown island, if I don’t even know where it is, But you’re sure it exists, As sure as I am that the sea is dark, Right now, seen from up here with the water the colour of jade and the sky ablaze, it doesn’t seem at all dark to me, That’s just an illusion, sometimes islands seem to float above the surface of water, but it’s not true, How do you think you’ll manage if you haven’t got a crew, I don’t know yet, We could live here and I could get work cleaning the boats that come into port, and you, And I, You must have some skill, a craft, a profession, as they call it nowadays, I have, did have, will have if necessary, but I want to find the unknown island, I want to find out who I am when I’m there on that island, Don’t you know, If you don’t step outside yourself, you’ll never discover who you are, The king’s philosopher, when he had nothing to do, would come and sit beside me and would watch me darning the pages’ socks, and sometimes he would start philosophizing, he would say that each man is an island, but since that has nothing to do with me, being a woman, I paid no attention to him, what do you think, That you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we cant see ourselves unless we become free ourselves, Unless we escape from ourselves, you mean, No, that’s not the same thing. The blaze in the sky was dying down, the waters grew suddenly purple, not even the cleaning woman could doubt that the sea really is dark, at least at certain times of the day.
Read more of this excerpt...
WORDS TO LIVE BY
“The big news climatewise, they're saying, is the Ice Age. Which is coming up. After uh, ten thousand years of decent weather, muck out the igloo, boys, and hunker down for ninety millennia of frostbite.”
1988 ·
Yellow Dog
Martin Amis
NON-FICTION
NEW MUSIC